Low power self-maintaining Tor relay

What is a Tor relay?

Tor relays are also referred to as "routers" or "nodes." They receive traffic on the Tor network and pass it along. Check out the Tor website for a more detailed explanation of how Tor works. There are three kinds of relays that you can run in order to help the Tor network: middle relays, exit relays, and bridges.

Should I run a Tor relay?

By running a Tor relay you can help make the Tor network: faster (and therefore more usable) more robust against attacks. more stable in case of outages.

Who maintains Tor relays?

Tor (aka The Onion Router) is software that allows users to browse the web anonymously by encrypting and routing requests through multiple relay layers or nodes. This software is maintained by the Tor Project, a nonprofit organization that provides internet anonymity and anti-censorship tools.

How many relays are in a Tor circuit?

A Tor circuit is made of three relays: The first relay or entry guard. If you configured Tor bridges, one of your bridges is the first relay. The second relay or middle node.

How does Tor works?

Tor works by sending your traffic through three random servers (also known as relays) in the Tor network. The last relay in the circuit (the “exit relay”) then sends the traffic out onto the public Internet. The image above illustrates a user browsing to different websites over Tor.

What are Tor switches used for?

Among other capabilities, ToR switches handle operations, including Layer 2 and Layer 3 frame and packet forwarding, data center bridging and the transport of Fibre Channel over Ethernet for the racks of servers connected to them.

Are Tor relays public?

The design of the Tor network means that the IP address of Tor relays is public. However, one of the ways Tor can be blocked by governments or ISPs is by blocklisting the IP addresses of these public Tor nodes.

Who controls Tor?

The Tor Project, Inc. is a Seattle-based 501(c)(3) research-education nonprofit organization founded by computer scientists Roger Dingledine, Nick Mathewson and five others. The Tor Project is primarily responsible for maintaining software for the Tor anonymity network.

Why does Tor use 3 relays?

Tor uses only three relays by default because that's the bare minimum you need for safety. You can always use more…at a price. One would be pointless, since whoever operates that node you chose will see everything. Two is dangerous, because the entry and exit nodes would then be directly connected.

What are the minimum requirements for Tor relay?

It is recommended that a relay have at least 16 Mbit/s (Mbps) upload bandwidth and 16 Mbit/s (Mbps) download bandwidth available for Tor. More is better. The minimum requirements for a relay are 10 Mbit/s (Mbps). If you have less than 10 Mbit/s but at least 1 Mbit/s we recommend you run a bridge with obfs4 support.

Does Tor use UDP or TCP?

Tor only supports TCP. Non-TCP traffic to the Internet, such as UDP datagrams and ICMP packets, is dropped.

How much RAM does Tor use?

All of this said, fast Tor relays do use a lot of ram. It is not unusual for a fast exit relay to use 500-1000 MB of memory.

What is a Tor circuit?

A TOR circuit is the combination of entry/guard relay, middle relay and the exit relay. Some transmissions also involve Bridge nodes (Such occurrences are only observed when the known entry and exit nodes are blocked by a certain party like a government or a corporate organization)

Why does Tor use 3 relays?

How does Tor choose relays?

Tor chooses an exit relay which actually allows you to exit the Tor network. Some only allow web traffic (port 80) which is not useful when someone wants to send emails. The exit relay has to have available capacities. Tor tries to choose such exits which have enough ressources available.

How do you use a Tor circuit?

Forming a circuit

A Tor circuit is made up of a guard node, a middle node, and an exit node. The client starts the circuit formation process by contacting the node it has chosen as its guard node. The client and guard node negotiate a TLS session, and the client asks the guard node to help it initialize a Tor circuit.

Does Tor use UDP or TCP?

Tor only supports TCP. Non-TCP traffic to the Internet, such as UDP datagrams and ICMP packets, is dropped.

How do you check a Tor circuit?

You can see a diagram of the circuit that Tor Browser is using for the current tab in the site information menu, in the URL bar. In the circuit, the Guard or entry node is the first node and it's automatically and randomly selected by Tor.

Does Tor encrypt all traffic?

Encryption. Tor provides you with enhanced online privacy and encrypts your traffic, so your activity can't be traced directly back to you. Hides your IP address. The default settings of Tor will hide your IP, so nobody can see your real location.

Are Tor relays public?

Does Tor use TCP?

Protocol dependencies

TCP: Typically, Tor uses TLS over TCP as its transport protocol. The well known TLS port for Tor traffic is 443. Tor commonly uses ports 9001 and 9030 for network traffic and directory information.